only 3 things bad in this movie: plot, dialogue, acting

Rating: 1/10 (21 July 2003)

more than a huge disappointment, this was more like a plain scam. i have not seen such terrible acting, dialogue and storyline in a long, long time. maybe the first 15 minutes are OK in a made-for-TV-movie sort of way. then it keeps getting more and more silly. dialogue is *really* bad, but it certainly fits the actors (except for poor brendan gleeson, what's he doing here?). the last 3rd of the movie (it will seem 7 hours long by the time you get to it) tries to surprise you but it's just a formulaic, sloppy, boring, annoying 40+ minutes long showcase of silliness posing as 'action-filled storytelling'. haw haw haw. the ending: man, is that AWFUL. i hear they changed it, after the release, so now you can see both, separated by a "but, what if...?" screen. apparently fox-searchlight wants people to go again and see if they like this one better. a-hum. plus, it's hard to get scared with that inane pop-filled soundtrack. i'm sure "night of the living dead"'s zombies are laughing in their graves at this pretentious scary-movie wannabe attempt at updating that classic. PS this danny boyle guy, he directed 'trainspotting' (that's how he conned me into watching this crap), but he also directed 'the beach'...